Breast Cancer Awareness Month: 2019 Immunotherapy Research Update

According to the latest report from the National Cancer Institute, from 2012 to 2016, breast cancer death rates among women between the ages of 20 and 49 were more than double those of any other cause of cancer death among men or women. Younger women tend to have more aggressive breast cancer and are typically diagnosed at more advanced stages. In addition, certain types of breast cancer, such as HR and HER2, likely play a role in the lower survival rates.

This October during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we look to new and better treatments on the horizon. With the approval of checkpoint blockade immunotherapy as standard of care for triple-negative breast cancer, the Cancer Research Institute, in collaboration with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, is creating a breast cancer repository as a resource to the biomedical research community to better understand the impact of immunotherapy in breast cancer patients. With each new development from the lab to the clinic, we come closer to unlocking an answer to cancer.

Breast Cancer Treatment and Research News

We spoke with Rebecca A. Shatsky, MD, of UC San Diego Health about new developments in the field. She discusses different angles of attack that oncologists must consider and the challenges of personalized medicine.

Read interview with Dr. Shatsky About Breast Cancer Research

Biomarkers in Breast Cancer

During the research update panel at the 2019 CRI Immunotherapy Patient Summit in New York City, Sylvia Adams, MD, the director of the Breast Cancer Center, Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Health, discussed the importance of understanding biomarkers to provide breast cancer patients with appropriate treatments.

Breast Cancer Veteran Story

In December 2015, Judy Perkins became the first metastatic breast cancer patient to be declared free of disease after a course of immunotherapy using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. When the results were published in Nature in June 2018, oncologists and patients everywhere gained new hope in the fight against breast cancer.

LEARN MORE ABOUT Judy's Breast Cancer Journey

Breast Cancer Scientist Spotlight

Qiwei Wang, PhD, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is investigating how PARP inhibitors influence the tumor microenvironment, and especially immune cells called macrophages, in order to improve the effectiveness of these treatments for more patients.

LEARN MORE ABOUT DR. WANG'S RESEARCH

Immunotherapy for Breast Cancer
Information Updated

In March 2019, the FDA approved atezolizumab (Tecentriq®), a checkpoint inhibitor that targets the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway, in combination with the chemotherapy nab-paclitaxel for subsets of patients with advanced triple-negative breast cancer. Get the latest information on immunotherapy for breast cancer.

VIEW IMMUNOTHERAPY FOR BREAST CANCER WEBPAGE

Find a Breast Cancer Clinical Trial

Breast cancer research and treatment protocols are changing rapidly. Our Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Trial Finder can aid you in finding immunotherapy clinical trial options from checkpoint inhibitors to cell therapy. Understand the basics of clinical trials, access cutting-edge treatments, and help the next generation of doctors and patients.

Find a Cancer Clinical Trial

Support Breast Cancer Research

Our commitment to breast cancer research goes back nearly four decades, when we first began to fund the New York Metropolitan Breast Cancer group—a coalition of physicians and surgeons from more than 15 medical institutions working together to develop a coordinated breast cancer diagnosis and treatment program. Today, we are funding the most promising research for effective breast cancer immunotherapy treatment. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, give the women and men around you a different future—a Future Immune to Cancer™.

Donate to Breast Cancer Research